Council lets MOHAI keep $7 million from city

An artist shows what the exterior of Seattle’s armory building will look like after the Museum of History and Industry moves there in 2012. (Courtesy of MOHAI)

The Seattle City Council settled a squabble between Mayor Mike McGinn and the Museum of History and Industry on Monday, voting to hold the city to a deal that lets the museum acquire up to $7 million from the sale of its Montlake facility.

But Councilmember Nick Licata said he planned to introduce an ordinance that would temporarily let the city use $8.5 million from the sale. The agreement is a one-time revenue source for the city at a time when budgets have been slashed to the bone — essentially a loan from the museum.

McGinn slammed that idea. “This is a budget gimmick, pure and simple,” McGinn said in a statement. “We give away millions of taxpayer dollars to an organization and then they loan it back to us and we call it a good deal. It’s no wonder our budget situation is so bad.”

MOHAI must vacate its building to make way for a state Route 520 expansion project, and the museum plans to move in 2012 to a city-owned armory building in South Lake Union. But that plan hit a roadblock this summer when the mayor asked to renegotiate a plan that split proceeds from the sale of the Montlake land between the museum and the city.

McGinn changed his mind about the split after MOHAI did better than the city expected in mitigation negotiations with the state.

The museum negotiated to receive $40 million for the trouble of moving to the armory and finding new space to house stored artifacts and museum staff. The mayor’s office anticipated MOHAI would receive about $15 million.

Seattle is facing a $67 million revenue deficit, and McGinn said he’d rather use proceeds from the land sale to help fund city agencies.

“Now is not the time for one non-profit, no matter how worthy it is, to try to get everything it can out of the city,” McGinn said in a public appearance on the Seattle Channel earlier this month.

The council vote was delayed earlier this month, pushing it to the same day McGinn unveiled his budget for the city. Among a long list of reductions, the proposal slashed funding to the arts and eliminated about 300 jobs.

Representatives from several social-services groups addressed the council Monday, urging members to vote to amend the agreement so the city could disperse the full amount from the state to needy organizations.

Councilmember Sally Clark said it’s “a little bit tragic” that the situation was characterized as a battle of “haves versus have-nots” — that this was a rare case where needy groups asked for money earmarked for another organization. She said the city would set a bad precedent by reneging on the agreement.

“A deal kind of has to be a deal,” she said.

Councilmember Sally Bagshaw said the armory building has been a “financial pickle” for the city, and letting the museum care for it will alleviate a long-term financial burden.